Brick by Brick
by Ari Vela
Summary: Another of Walter's experiments would lead to mortifying vulnerability for Olivia, and an unwarranted confrontation. Rated T for explicit suggestions at the end. Slightly AU, set after Olivia's return from the other side.


Walter held the wires out hopefully, a simple smile that would never give away his volumes of genius, kept locked away in a Harvard lab.

"You want me to _what?_" Olivia stared at the electrodes in Walter's open hand.

"I believe if we attach the electrodes to your temples, we'll be able to access your memories. Particularly, from the period of time you spent on the Other Side," Walter said, his serene expression was unsettling. "By channeling your brain's synapses through this machine, we'll be able to view them on our projector screen."

He smiled at the simplicity of it, Olivia's stomach lurched uncomfortably.

Olivia Dunham was a complicated individual; she would freely admit that to herself. That didn't mean she was ready to have her most guarded memories on display for the whole Fringe team to observe. She would rather strip down to her underwear and dive head first into a holding tank full of icy salt water before she let the direction of her thought process be steered by anyone but herself. She had been an experiment before. She wasn't sure she could willingly subject herself to that much vulnerability. Not now.

"Walter, how exactly does this work? Is it safe?" Broyles asked.

"Oh, perfectly. The converter works the brain synapses and stimuli into images that can be viewed by a secondary observer. Memories are encoded and stored in various parts of the brain. This is long-term memory. The information can then be retrieved by searching those memory databases. It is imperfect, but for all intents and purposes, the brain is a computer and the memories are information. As Olivia retrieves the information, we will be able to view them here. It may not be a perfect record, but it will be an unbiased account of Olivia's time in the other universe. Even if she is subconsciously suppressing those memories, the information is still stored. With the help of hypnosis to direct her train of thought, we should be able to help her retrieve them."

Olivia felt a twinge of guilt. She had told Broyles everything she could remember, but there were large stretches of time ripped from her memory banks. And the scars were still gut-wrenchingly novel. The needle marks had begun to heal and fade, but Walternate had completely raped her sense of self security. She still had momentary glimpses of recollection or reflection that she was sure never belonged to her in the first place. And her relationship with Peter had crumbled into faltering hope and dying butterflies. There were still warm feelings burning somewhere in the back of her mind, but remembering her alternate wearing her clothes and stealing her hopeful intentions was like an icy bucket of water. It was an elemental war, and she was exhausted.

Regardless, Broyles needed information. Walter's speculations needed cementing with some data and observation. Olivia was the only one with untapped reserves. A simple debriefing hadn't been enough to extract them.

"Olivia?" Peter's voice invaded her trance. She refused to look at him. "Are you sure about this?"

"Strap me in, Walter," she said.

"Wonderful!" Walter was positively giddy to travel down another experimental avenue. This was the first time situation called for his memory projector.

Olivia laid on the couch in the lab, trying to get comfortable. She grabbed a war-weathered pillow and hugged it close to her chest, her fingers digging into the fabric. It was freezing in the lab, but the temperature wasn't the cause of her tremors. Apprehension gripped her like a writhing snake.

Walter placed the electrodes around her head. His voice soon infiltrated her ears, deep and steady, lulling her to a controlled state of unconsciousness.

"Listen to me, now, Olivia. You are completely safe. I'm going to count, when I get to 100, I want you to be completely relaxed and open to instruction. Ready? 1... 2... 3..."

The vice-grip on her stomach began to ease, the doubt etched into her brow began to slacken.

_"14... 15... 16..."_

The tension in her fingers let go. As Walter counted, she could feel the tightness leave her body. There was only his voice and her thoughts. It was comfortably simple.

_"66... 67...68..."_

Her head filled with a solid nothingness, like warm water oozing in through her ears. She was floating. There was no floor, no ceiling. Just here.

_"98... 99... 100."_

She heard the hum of a machine, felt something in her temples pulse involuntarily.

_"Olivia, I want you to go back to when you traveled across the threshold of the other universe to retrieve Peter. Concentrate. Tell us everything you can."_

* * *

><p>A silence swallowed the lab; Astrid and Broyles shared a cautious gaze at the screen. Walter took turns directing Olivia, and marveling at his own genius.<p>

On the screen, Olivia was walking through a tunnel, walking toward a light that would undoubtedly gain access to untapped thoughts. Peter watched Olivia, unconscious, unreachable.

As the onscreen Olivia reached the light, the memory's owner's eyes contracted open, her pupils moving at REM speed in their sockets.

A burst of entangled memories lit up the screen.

_She stood in front of a mirror, her hair sopping wet, red, with bangs. Then she was screaming in a cell, she felt like the world was crumbling at her feet._

"This isn't right..." Walter's eyes were wide. "The memories should be whole. These are fragmented."

_She fought as a masked individual slammed a needle into her scarred forearms. Then, she was standing with her mother._

"Olivia, focus!" Walter barked.

_She was in the back of a taxi cab with a hospital gown, pleading with a cabby to save her. She was shooting at policemen outside of a gas station._

"Walter, this isn't working..." Astrid said, anxious eyes on Olivia's body, her eyes rolling, her fingers tearing apart the pillow's seams.

_She was__ strapped, face down, on a hospital bed of horrors_

_Suddenly, she was speaking to Peter through gritted teeth. Tears punctuated her words._

_"__I don't want to be with you!" _

Olivia's eyes slammed shut and she began convulsing, her lips twisted around clenched teeth.

"Walter, turn it off..." Peter said as he watched Olivia's small frame, writhing violently on the tattered, old couch.

Walter walked slowly to the machine, a perplexed eye on Olivia.

Before he could flip the switch, a small girl appeared on the screen.

_She was in the middle of a modest room, sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring at the door. Bruises inundated her delicate skin, her eye black. She couldn't have been a day over nine years old. She was rocking back and forth, murmuring to herself. _

_"No, no, no, no, please, no, no, no..."  
><em>

_Booming footsteps approached and the door swung open with a destructive thud. Little Olivia cried as the man entered. He grabbed her by the arm and swung her full-force into the wood-paneled wall, a disturbing crunch of bone filled the room._

Olivia thrashed, screaming, tears marching down her face. The screen went blank.

She sat up and buried her head in her hands.

Peter instinctively jumped to his feet. He was kneeling in front of her in seconds, he reached outhis hand.

"No! Away! Just get away!" She bellowed, her normally calm voice terrifyingly amplified.

She ripped the electrodes from her forehead and tore away from the couch. Keys, purse, and she was gone.

"Oh, Walter..." Astrid sighed, as Olivia's heels clicked down the hallway.

* * *

><p>The drive home was a complete blur. Olivia was mortified.<p>

Most of the team knew about her fractured childhood, but no one has ever been granted the horror of the gory details of her tormented youth. Her blistering exit made things even worse. She was a fury of humiliation and tears. Those nightmares were never meant to be shared.

She sat on her pristine white couch, a glass of whiskey in her trembling hand. Her damp hair clung to her neck. She had thrown herself into the hottest water she could summon when she got home. Her clothes were still on the bathroom floor. She wrapped herself in sweatpants and a t-shirt, with an icing of a bathrobe and blankets. Protection.

A jolt of anger and horror crawled up her spine. Peter had seen her in that inexcusably defenseless state. There she was, as those demons danced on the screen. Exposed. Weak. Naked.

She took a shuddering sip from the whiskey glass.

She had begun to accept her current status with Peter. She wasn't entirely sure she could call it a relationship. Or friendship. That undying reality that Peter still had feelings for her alternate still burned. An unseen injury that healed more slowly than any physical affliction.

She took another sip.

She opened up, at times, testing the waters. But her imposter's presence in her assumed life had taken an aluminum baseball bat to her ability to trust. It was so savage, and so unfair. She ached to let him in, to help him take down that insurmountable fortress around her heart, brick by brick. A desire made even more impossible by her reaction to his act of affection, of concern. She had spurned him again, too many times to count by now.

"I don't want to be with you!" The words burned into her memory. The dichotomy in her own mind was maddening. She desperately wanted him, but she couldn't let herself. It was like a piano string to her heart.

_Knock. Knock._

"Olivia?"

She froze. Peter's voice outside the door was a duplicitous threat. Her sanity and her desire were waging the most draining war.

"Olivia. Come on. I know you're home. Please?"

She got to her feet, shedding the blankets, clutching her glass, eyes burning a hole in the door.

"Olivia? Please? I mean no harm, I just want to make sure you're okay. You, you looked so..."

The door swung open. His concerned face inspired an explosion of emotion. The bottom of her stomach fell.

"Hi," she said.

"Olivia..."

"I'm fine, Peter," she said with an insincere smile.

"Good," he added flaccidly, his resolve melting under her unforgiving gaze. "I was, uh, worried. About you."

"How very kind," she said, immediately regretting the bite in her words. Peter's face fell. What felt like an eternity of awkward silence passed between them, wiring their teeth shut.

Olivia's stare finally fell. She pushed the door open wider with a sad smile.

"Come in, if you like."

Peter looked up to see Olivia's back, retreating inside. He cautiously followed, to find her sitting on the couch, cradling her glass in both hands while staring at her feet. He sat next to her, allowing several inches, respecting her need for distance.

"Will you talk to me?"

"About?"

"About today. About how you're feeling."

She didn't respond, her eyes on the floor still.

"About us?"

"I don't know what there is to say, Peter."

"There is plenty to say."

She took in a sharp breath, her clenched teeth fight against her brain's rambunctious need to empty itself. She gave in.

"I struggle every day with these rifts between my needs and wants, Peter. I can't let you in. You didn't know she wasn't me. How do I know? How do I know it's me you want and not the memory of her? How do I know, that given the chance, you wouldn't choose her. By all means, she's the better version. She's got friends, she doesn't have the same baggage. That fact is incinerating my want to be with you. It's overpowering."

"She's not better," he said. "I don't know how many times I can tell you. I don't know how many times I can say I'm sorry..."

"I know you're sorry, Peter. I don't doubt your sincerity, I doubt your feelings. I doubt that we have that unbridled connection I once thought we had. I know I'm broken, Peter. I know that. And I want you. Not to fix me, not to make me whole. Just to be there. I thought you were supposed to be here. With me."

That pressing silence settled between them. She wiped her eyes with graceful fingers. His courage was melting away. He had asked for honesty, and she had been.

"I know it's hard for you. I get that. I'm just asking for a leap of faith, if you have any left in you. Let me in. Give me a chance. I have no more explanations. No more apologies"

Olivia's eyes flickered with a sideways glance. She considered him, his words.

"That's all I want, Olivia. Just to be here. With you."

She took a hard swallow and looked up at him.

"Can we do this slowly?"

"We can do this however you need to."

He allowed himself a small smile as Olivia lowered her head onto his shoulder. He felt her sigh, months of contrition and anger leaking through her slow breath. He put an arm around her shoulder to pull her closer.

She didn't pull away.

* * *

><p>Peter's eyes opened suddenly, the darkness pressing against his pupils.<p>

Olivia and he had talked for hours, about possibilities. About overcoming those issues that had plagued them for weeks. She had fallen asleep on his shoulder in the middle of a long, heartfelt speech. It was endearing; he didn't have the heart to wake her then. He had drifted off, alone with his thoughts.

He gently slid out from under her. He turned to face her slumbering form, a smile emerging from sleepy wonders. He scooped her up gently; she felt light in his arms. Moaning in her sleep, she let her head fall against his chest, stopping his breath dead in his throat.

He walked her down the hallway, almost at her door before her eyes snapped open.

"What're you doing?" She asked sleepily, stretching, indicating she wanted her feet on the floor.

"I was going to put you to bed," he set her down gently. "You fell asleep."

"Oh. Are you going home?"

"I probably should. Good talk?"

"Yeah. Good talk," she smiled sincerely.

He turned to walk towards the door, Olivia walked behind him, watching his back intently.

"Peter."

He turned, she closed the gap, arms folded, another subconscious defensive mechanism.

"Will you stay?"

He raised an eyebrow, surveying her.

"Of course. Do you want me to sleep on the couch?"

"Wherever you want," she smile shyly, before dropping her eyes to the floor.

He put a gentle hand under her chin, her eyes met his, searching, asking.

Meeting him half-way, she returned the kiss earnestly. It was gentle, passionate. He un-knotted her arms, and slid his own around her small waist. They broke apart briefly. A familiar fire lit him up, her eyes were pleading.

He tilted her face to his again, one hand on her neck, one on her hip, pulling her in.

Olivia finally closed her eyes and let go. Let go of the tension, the apprehension. As his tongue found hers, an electric current erupted down her spine. His hands slid up her torso, ruffling her small t-shirt.

She tugged at his shirt as he pulled her back towards the bedroom. After he dropped his lips to her neck, goosebumps rolled down her skin.

"Oh, Peter..." she gasped.

He groaned, pinning her against a wall, pushing his hips into hers.

Gripping her hair, he ran his tongue right below her earlobe, building momentum as she moaned again.

_She said slow,_ he told himself as he painfully began to pull himself away. A light squeeze over his bulge stifled the departure.

He opened the door to her room, as he slowly pulled her shirt over her head. With quick fingers, she unbuckled his pants and pulled his shirt over his head. He slid his fingers under the waistband of her sweatpants, tugging at her underwear, her skin pressing against his.

He put his hands on her thighs and lifted her, setting her gently on the bed, sliding her pants off slowly, kissing her collar bone, running a thumb over her nipple. She moaned into his skin. He lifted his head to kiss her cheek, he felt her smile against his lips. He looked down at her, her hair swirled around the pillows. She was breathtaking.

"Are you okay with this?"

"I want you here."

He kissed her deeply, pressing himself against her.

With each thrust, her exclamations grew awoke something in him, something instinctual. Something necessary. Later, he held her as she fell into a peaceful sleep, regretting the guess at when he'd have to let her go again.

Olivia woke hours later, locked in Peter's arms. She could feel his warm skin pressed against her. She saw sunlight breaking through the slats in her blinds. She gripped his arm and closed her eyes. She had a few more hours to lay here, to tangle with him. She felt his chest rise and fall against her back, his heart strong, steady.

Each beat knocking another hole in that impenetrable wall.

_Brick by brick_, she told herself.


End file.
